Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to teach ELL (English Language Learners) for fun and a small amount of remuneration through my retirement and my brother is currently tutoring students who are learning English.
The following is dedicated to all those who find English frustrating and funnyt
We''ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes
But the plural of ox becomes oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two is a geese
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I gave you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that and three would be those
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats not cose
We speak of a brother and also of brethren
But though we say mother we never say methren
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim!
Let's face it -English is a crazy language
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger,
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple
English muffins weren't invented in England
We take English for granted
But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of
All but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If vegetarians eats vegetables what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane
In what other language do people
Recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck and send cargo by ship
We have noses that run and feel that smell
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
Same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form, by filling it out
And in which an alarm goes off by going on
And in Closing, if Father is Pop,
How come Mother is not Mop?
Author Unkown
The following is dedicated to all those who find English frustrating and funnyt
We''ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes
But the plural of ox becomes oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two is a geese
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I gave you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
Then one may be that and three would be those
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats not cose
We speak of a brother and also of brethren
But though we say mother we never say methren
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim!
Let's face it -English is a crazy language
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger,
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple
English muffins weren't invented in England
We take English for granted
But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that
Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing,
Grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of
All but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If vegetarians eats vegetables what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking
English should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane
In what other language do people
Recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck and send cargo by ship
We have noses that run and feel that smell
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the
Same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form, by filling it out
And in which an alarm goes off by going on
And in Closing, if Father is Pop,
How come Mother is not Mop?
Author Unkown
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